Colombia Ranks Among the Latin American Countries With the Lowest Housing Deficit
According to the 2025 National Quality of Life Survey (ECV), released a few weeks ago by Colombia’s National Administrative Department of Statistics (DANE), Colombia’s housing deficit indicator (a measure that assesses whether a population’s homes meet decent living standards) in Colombia showed another decline, falling from 26.8% to 25.6% over the past year.
This indicator is divided into two main categories: quantitative (the need to build new homes) and qualitative (the need to repair or connect existing homes to public services). In Colombia‘s case, the survey showed declines in both the quantitative deficit (0.4%) and the qualitative deficit (0.7%). Overall, in 2025, a total of 3.6 million households (19.3% of the total) had a housing deficit.
Likewise, the study found that 40.8% of households live in rented or subleased housing, compared with 40.2% in 2022, while 34.8% owned their homes outright (34.9% in 2022). In addition, 3.3% of households are paying off their homes, 4.1% occupy a home informally, and 2.4% have collective ownership.
Housing deficit in other Latin American countries
But Colombia’s case, viewed in the regional context, reveals another dimension. For decades, the housing deficit in Latin America was understood as a shortage of new homes.
Today, reality shows a different challenge: Between 70% and 80% of the region’s housing deficit is qualitative in nature. In other words, millions of families already have a home but need to expand it, reinforce it, adapt it, or improve its conditions so that it is safe, healthy, and resilient.
Against this backdrop, incremental housing production has become the main path to adequate housing for broad sectors of the population, although it continues to develop with limited access to financing and technical assistance.
Research conducted by Habitat for Humanity in Argentina, Mexico, and Peru identifies a shared pattern across the region: Families build their homes in stages, as their needs evolve and their savings capacity increases.
This model, known as incremental housing production, is not a marginal alternative but rather a structural reality that drives a large share of construction activity across Latin America and requires a transformation in the way public policies, financial instruments, and housing solutions are designed.
The evidence also shows that this form of housing production carries considerable economic weight. In Mexico, nearly two out of every three homes were built through incremental production processes. This model accounts for 62.8% of the country’s housing stock and supports 55.6% of the construction sector’s Gross Domestic Product, Habitat for Humanity said in a statement.
Family savings determine construction decisions
However, 86% of these processes continue to be financed primarily through family savings, reflecting the limited availability of financial products adapted to the reality of millions of households, the global nongovernmental organization added.
The lack of technical support also has economic consequences. In Peru, a home built incrementally without specialized planning can ultimately cost up to twice as much as a continuous, professionally assisted construction process.
The studies show that 83% of these additional costs fall directly on families, while assisted incremental housing models could reduce construction cycle costs by 57%, generating savings of nearly US$3.86 billion annually.
In Argentina, the research shows that homes evolve alongside families. Expansions respond to household growth, the arrival of new family members, or the need to generate income from the home.
In most cases, construction decisions depend on family savings cycles rather than on projects designed to be completed in a single phase, a dynamic that reflects the everyday reality of millions of Latin American households.
The main challenge is the homes that already exist
Regional data confirm that the challenge goes beyond national borders. Paraguay has a qualitative housing deficit of 59.1%, Brazil 35.4%, Ecuador 31.5%, Panama 21.8%, Mexico 20.7%, Colombia 20%, and Uruguay 14.8%.
Rather than reflecting a need to build new homes, these figures highlight the urgency of strengthening policies to improve existing housing and support the incremental construction processes already undertaken by millions of families.
“Between 70% and 80% of the housing deficit in the region is qualitative. In other words, the central problem is not simply the lack of housing, but the poor quality of existing housing,” said Ernesto Castro Garcia, Habitat for Humanity’s area vice president for Latin America and the Caribbean, as quoted in the statement.
For many years, the housing deficit was measured by the number of homes that were missing. Today, it is clear that the main challenge lies in the homes that already exist. Millions of families build wealth step by step, yet solutions continue to be offered based on a finished-housing model that does not reflect how housing is actually produced in Latin America.